


Love is something else

by Hotaru_Tomoe



Series: The English job [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Did I Mention Angst?, Future Fic, Gen, Sad, Very angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 16:43:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What kind of relationship there was between you and my dad?"<br/>"He didn't say anything, ever?"<br/>"No, not a word. But now I need to know. Please" she says with pleading voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is something else

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [L'amore è un'altra cosa](https://archiveofourown.org/works/826245) by [Hotaru_Tomoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe). 



> I think I should apologize twice for this story.  
> First, for the angst, but it's not totally my fault! This story was born just after Moffat said the word "wedding" last August and I have wondered "what if ...?"  
> Second, for the (bad) translation. English isn't my first language, and many years have passed since I studied it at school, so there're probably many grammar errors (if you can, read it in Italian, it's better). Also, my writing style isn't the most suitable to be translated into English, I usually use long and articulated syntactic constructions, that are difficult to translate well.  
> The title of the story is the one of a song by Arisa, an Italian singer, as well as the two quotes at the beginning and at the end of the story.  
> You can listen the song [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSFqJa6QLQg).  
> Lyrics are very nice and if anyone wants, I can (try to) translate it.

_Helpful, now saying everything is helpful,_  
_it's going to hurt these fragile souls,_  
_more than any other truth._  
_[...]_  
_The night is too quiet and now_  
_love is something else._  


When she arrives at Heathrow Airport, Shirley Watson is prepared for the worst, thinking about the state of the tombstone of his father, after eight months of total dereliction.  
Shirley works for a multinational corporation, usually between Denver and New York, she has few vacations and it'd have been better for her to have the grave near her house, so she could go to the cemetery more often.  
The reasons because his father wanted to be buried in London and not in Denver, next to mom, will always remain a mystery for Shirley: her dad never seemed too fond of his hometown and he rarely spoke about it. But it was a request that he made on his deathbed, a begging prayer, and something, in the urgent way he grabbed her wrist in that moment, made her realize that it was really important to him.  
And it surprised her, yes, a so pressing request by a man who rarely had expressed a desire for something, it surprised her a lot. When Christmas was approaching, it was a nightmare for her and mom to choose a gift for him, because he merely shrugged with a smile, telling them not to bother, thank you very much, but he didn't need anything.  
Shirley thinks back again to his father as the taxi moves fast through the streets of the ancient city, which over the years has managed to retain an old-fashioned and somewhat romantic looking.  
She isn't ashamed to admit that she had always been more fond of her mom than of her dad: more things in common, even more physical resemblance. With his dad, as well as having a lot of difference in age, there has never been a lot of dialogue, due to the shy and quiet temper of the man. She remembers him as a sweet and caring, but definitely much too apprehensive dad.  
The only real, serious family quarrel happened when Shirley turned fifteen and began to ask those freedoms that all adolescents want: going out alone with friends, dancing till dawn in some clubs, sometimes getting drunk. All her friends did those things and she didn't see anything wrong in it: they were called sins of youth, right? If one didn't commit them during youth, then when?  
Her father was very strict about those things, he required to know beforehand her friends and their families (making her feel deadly ashamed for) and he demanded her to be at home just after sunset. So one day, backed up by her mom, she discussed about it with him.  
The talk, however, degenerated in a big fight because of the stubbornness of her dad and Shirley ran to her room slamming the door. Then she heard her mother keeping arguing and upholding her reasons.  
"You barely grant her an hour of air, John, as she was a prisoner. Look, you're going to get the opposite effect: she'll lose trust in us and she'll do secretly all the things you forbid!"  
"Why don't you see that, Mary? I just want to keep her safe from danger. I don't want anything bad to happen to her."  
"She's not a little girl anymore, darling, and you can not keep her forever in a golden cage. Shirley has to live her life."  
But it was all water under the bridge, by now.  
  
And so, after having left her luggage at the hotel, she's at the gate of the cemetery, armed with patience, detergent, sponge and a bunch of fresh flowers, ready for the worst.  
Instead, the gravestone is perfectly tidy, neat and immaculate as the day of the funeral. The golden letters of "John Watson" shine under the sun and, resting on the ground, there's a beautiful bouquet of red roses. There's a black gravestone, next the one of her dad and it bears the marks of a long neglect: overgrown with weeds and so filthy that it's impossible to read the name of the occupant anymore. Shirley's really relieved that the one of his dad is not in the same condition. Someone must have gone there every day to take care of. But who? Her dad has never mentioned any friends from London. He surely had some friends, but he never talked about them, so Shirley had always believed that his life, before he met Mary, wasn't... interesting? Important? So it had always seemed to her.  
But now, in front of that bunch of fresh and fragrant roses, Shirley wonders if there was another reason. Perhaps there was someone in London, an old lost love, she muses, caressing the flowers.  
Anyway, it should be an event that dates back to before John moved to America, where he moved with Mary. Something like forty years ago.  
_"Whoever did this, I would be pleased to meet him and say thank you."_  
For a moment, Shirley feels observed and looks around, but there's just a little old lady, far from her, who's watering a small boxwood bush near a family grave. She shrugs that feeling from the shoulders, greets his father one last time and goes out of the cemetery.  


*****

Next day, Shirley is very annoyed: she has crossed the ocean to be at the annual meeting of the her import-export corporation and now everything is postponed indefinitely, because a stupid Philippine volcano decided to erupt that day, flights from that Country are blocked and half of the members of the Board of Directors couldn't be there.  
Going to the cemetery is a sudden, abrupt decision, dictated by the desire to meet the mysterious person who took care of the grave of her father.  
Indeed, there is someone, but not the person who was vaguely painted in her head: no elderly lady wrapped in an austere black dress and white hair in a bun, but a man, bent forward by the age, who must have been very tall when he was younger. He's almost completely bald and wears a threadbare black coat that reaches down to the feet. He turns around, hearing her approaching, and Shirley is transfixed by the only pair of gray eyes she has ever seen in her life. He has deep dark circles under the eyes, his face's excavated, the skin's stretched over high cheekbones, his clothes are perhaps heavier than him and everything tells her that she's looking at a very sick man. But there're those eyes, alert and alive, that run on her and Shirley, for a moment, is overwhelmed.  
"You shouldn't be here now." the man says, his voice hoarse from some disease.  
"I'm sorry." Shirley replies, before her brain gets in the way and wonders why the heck she should apologize with a stranger for visiting the grave of her father.  
"The meeting that I was attending was postponed." she adds, noting that the old man is watching her without talking. In his youth, he must have been extremely charming and something of the ancient beauty has remained on his tired face.  
The mysterious man gives her a strange, crooked and sardonic smile "So I was told."  
"What?" the girl asks, confused.  
"They said that I was a fascinating guy when I was young. Not that I ever cared about."  
Shirley looks at him open-mouthed "But-but how the hell did you know what I was thinking? It's amazing!"  
The man smiles again, in a different way, though. He's flattered and pleased by her compliment, but there's something else on the bottom of those clear eyes. It's as if her words had brought back memories of something far off, buried, something that is sweet and cruel at the same time.  
"Forgive me - she says - are you the person who took care of the grave of my father? If so, thank you."  
The old man turns back to the gravestone and traces the contour fondly with his fingers "Yes." he answers.  
"Did you know him well? Were you friends?"  
The other nods slightly, then coughs badly. "It 's late, I must go. And you too, you better not stay too long here: at sunset the zone becomes dangerous." He walks away without saying goodbye and Shirley doesn't know, doesn't know why she does that, but she puts her hands around the mouth and yells "I'll be here tomorrow at the same time."  


*****

Shirley was afraid he didn't come, but there he is, standing in front of the gravestone. "You're late." he adds, plus.  
"Forgive me." she replies. Oh, by now it seems to have become a leitmotif, she apologizing to this man she not even knows the name. She shakes her head. "There was a violent protest near my hotel, we were all stuck in the rooms for a while."  
"Yes, - the man muses - London has become turbulent since my brother is no longer here."  
"Was he a police officer?" Shirley ventures.  
"Oh, no. He was the British government."  
If he were any other person, Shirley would think it was a joke, or that the old man was showing signs of senile dementia. But something in the severe profile and in the heavy tone of the voice, surprisingly, led her to believe him. "Oh. Well... wow."  
"Today you ate a sandwich with roast beef and you've been drinking a coffee." the man says, enjoying her startled face: he likes to amaze her and, damn it, he always succeeds. She lets him do it, because she sees a little gleam at the bottom of those tired eyes, and, besides, she thinks he's incredible: she never knew a man like him.  
They remain quiet for a while, shoulder to shoulder, looking at the tombstone. There are so many things that Shirley would like to ask him: his name to begin with, what he was for his father, why John Watson has never talked about his past in London, how his father was when he was young. Many, too many things and she can't put his thoughts in order, so she simply stays there looking at him.  
Anyway, it's the man that asks her a question at the end of that weird visit "Was your dad happy?"  
It's a so vague question that Shirley doesn't know what to say. She thinks back to his dad, his calm demeanor, how he always avoided to argue and fight with his mom (save for that one time), how he tried quietly and patiently to reason with her when she was little and made a fuss. Dad, who took her to the park on Sunday, taught her to ride a bike and play tennis, always with his quiet appearance. "I ... yes, I suppose so."  
He hears the old man whispered a "Thank goodness." before he leaves.  


*****

"You're sick." Shirley says, when she meets him the next day.  
"Yes" He admits. He looks more tired than the previous days "Lung cancer."  
Shirley frowns, shocked "But it's a perfectly curable cancer nowadays!"  
The old man shows a little smile "I know very well. If one decides to be cured."  
Shirley understands that this man's letting himself die. He told about a dead brother, and his father, who was almost certainly an important friend to him, is dead too.  
He looks perfectly serene, like a man accepting the fate that happened to him, the same look that his dad had on his deathbed.  
_"The world this person knew no longer exists."_ the girl thinks. For this reason she doesn't urge him to run into the nearest hospital saying, who knows, maybe there's still time to save him. She nods thoughtfully and soon after greets him and walks away  
That afternoon she calls Tom, in Denver. Tom is her boyfriend, they live together for a few months. After asking about the plants and Mr. Noir, the cat, she makes a request.  
"In my room there's a blue shoebox on the bottom of the cabinet. I want you to send it to me with the fastest freight forwarder."  
"Business?"  
"No, it's something about my father."  
"Is everything okay?" She feels Tom becoming thoughtful on the other end of the phone and smiles: her boyfriend was very caring with her after the death of her parents.  
"Yes, Tom, it's all right."  
The day after the box is in her hands, while Shirley is sitting on the bed of the hotel. It contains the few things that his father had brought from London and had always jealously guarded in that old and tattered box. There're his dog tags, the commendation, the medal. And then there's a bunch of bizarre things that Shirley has never understood: a pocket magnifier, a blue wool scarf, carefully preserved with anti-moth bags, an old-fashioned pink smartphone, two chipped teamugs with horizontal stripes. Many of these objects don't seem to belong to his dad, not his style, in fact. Maybe they belong to the man who she meets in the cemetery. She closes her eyes, trying to image him, younger and with that blue scarf over the dark coat: it fits perfectly, in her mind.  
That gray and rainy day Shirley doesn't go to the cemetery. She stays in the hotel room and thinks back carefully to her dad.  
Very often, when he thought he wasn't observed, John Watson was taciturn and melancholy. He sat at the window for hours, a book carelessly forgotten in his lap, never read. He looked out wistfully, without seeing anything for real, lost in some kind of thoughts. Then Mary asked him if he wanted a cup of tea or a beer and he turned toward her with a slight and grateful smile. Or, if mom scolded him jokingly, telling him that he always had his head in the clouds, he looked guilty. At the end, Mary had accepted him as he was and had stopped grumbling.  
John Watson was a good husband and a nice dad, and he has been a quiet man, grateful to his wife for her affection.  
_"But love,_ \- Shirley says to herself - _love is something else."_ And now she sees, now she knows, because she's in love. There's her handsome Tom, beyond the ocean, that makes her sigh, and makes her heart beat faster and all her friends tell her she has different eyes now. The eyes of a woman in love. Her dad had never been like that with his wife, he has never had the eyes of a man in love. Even when she was a child, she had always noticed that her parents were exchanging much less effusions than those of her friends. Growing up, she had attributed this behavior to the shyness of his dad. But now she's certain that there are things that John Watson has kept inside himself, secrets that he brought with him to the grave. A doubt creeps into her, as she plays with the contents of the box. Maybe he and the other man were in love.  
But his father wasn't gay.  
_"Are you sure? You think often that you didn't know him that well."_ "Well - she says aloud in the empty room - he married my mother and I was born, so..."  
Shirley barely touches the dinner that she ordered from room service and stays awake most of the night watching the incessant rain that falls on London.  


*****

The next day she decides to confront the man. God, "confront" is a big word, used against someone devoured by cancer and who barely stands up, but she needs answers and she'll get them.  
He immediately understands, of course, and invites her to sit down on a bench not far away: it might take some time and surely he grows tired standing on his feet. Shirley gives him a can of hot green tea, but he refuses with a little gesture of his head.  
"It'd be good for you." the girl insists and something that looks like a smile appears for an instant on the man's face. "Your dad was like that, too, always worried that I ate and slept regularly."  
It's the longest sentence he uttered by the moment they met, perhaps today he's in the mood to talk, and he accepts the tea.  
Shirley opens a can of beer, drinks a long swig, exhales and then asked "What kind of relationship there was between you and my dad?"  
"He didn't say anything, ever?"  
"No, not a word. But now I need to know. Please." she says with pleading voice.  
"We lived together for about a year and a half."  
"Lived together... - The girl is almost shocked - Does that mean you...?"  
"No, we were not a... - he hesitates and reformulates the phrase - We didn't go to bed together, if that's what you think. He helped me in my work and he was my only friend."  
Shirley frowns "Dad was a very reserved person, but it seems so strange that he never talked about you."  
"That's because your father, for all these years, has always believed that I was dead."  
"Dead? I don't understand."  
"Years ago I faked my own death."  
"Why did you do such a thing?"  
Who the hell is that man?  
"Because I had to." the man says and finally drinks a sip of tea.  
"What kind of work did you do?"  
'It no longer matters." he answers vaguely, so Shirley imagine something similar to the one of his brother, the dead one, the British government. But she just can't imagine a man as mild as his dad in such a framework. "I really can't imagine what circumstances can push a man to fake his own death."  
"I had an archenemy. He threatened to kill John and two other people if I didn't commit suicide."  
"And you didn't say anything to my dad about this plan of you?"  
"No. He would spoil everything: your dad was so clear, so crystal clear in his reactions that he would not have fooled anyone."  
"What happened to this archenemy of you?"  
"He committed suicide for real. The remain of his criminal organization dissolved in a short time, without his guidance."  
Shirley becomes vehement "Then why you have continued to play dead? Why you didn't come back to my dad to explain? He was your best friend, right? And I'm sure that dad loved you. He would have been happy to know that you wasn't dead! "  
The man looks on the tombstone of John Watson "Your father had a deep and unconditional trust in me. When I made my decision I betrayed that trust and lost the right to come back to him. Besides, in the meantime, John met your mother, emigrated to the U.S. and you were born. "  
"You keeps to watch my dad for all these years?"  
"From a distance."  
For a lifetime, in silence. Shirley is invaded by a deep sadness and she shakes her head, waving her long brown hair. "It all seems so absurd."  
"There was no reason to upset John reappearing in front of him like a ghost. I would have just hurt him more than I already did. Acting as I did, he could rebuild his life and forget."  
_"No_ \- she would like to scream - _Daddy has never forgot you. He has preserved your things as precious relics, and now I know that every time he was lost in his thoughts, he was thinking about you. You're the one he loved. He had really a great lost love, here in London, and it was you."_  
"For him, I was a closed chapter, right? He was always smiling next you and your mother was always smiling and you told me that he was happy." For the first time the man's voice sounds uncertain, as if he was venturing on a land unknown to him... a man who understands what you ate three days ago... how can't he understand that a great love is forever?  
A part of her wants to tell him, but what's the point? It would just hurt a sick old man who seems to die with every cough.  
So Shirley fiddles with his tablet and repeats "Yes, he was happy and he loved us."  
She hopes that the former love of his dad can't understand that she lied. In addition, it is not entirely a lie, and maybe it will be lost in the sea of lies that has punctuated that sad, absurd story.  
Besides, it was a situation with no way out, the man is right. His was a deeply selfish gesture towards John and at the same time an extremely generous one to her and Mary, because if he had reappeared, who knows how his dad would react. Or maybe, deep in the heart, she knows, and also that man knows.  
She gets a message on his sophisticated tablet: that famous plane leaved Manila, tomorrow the meeting will be held regularly and she'll able to return to Denver the next day. The have already booked her return flight early in the morning, which means that she can no longer go back to the cemetery.  
The old man read the message with those gray eyes, still lively and gets up with difficulty "I was pleased to meet you, Shirley. Good luck."  
"Yeah, well... I ... I don't even know your name." the girl spreads her arms, but the man shakes his head: he'll not tell her. He moves to leave, but Shirley calls him back "Can you at least tell me that? Did you love my father?"  
The man's eyes are wet now "I still love him."  
The only daughter of John Watson looks at him as he walks away wearily.  
She stays for a while before the tomb of his father, trying to put some order in the storm of thoughts that swirls in her head, then her eyes fall on the black gravestone, corroded by time and weather. The man's words echo in the ears _"Years ago I faked my own death."_  
and with the tip of fingers she tries to trace the lines of the worn letters.  
  
Sherlock Holmes.  
Sherlock.  
  
Some memories of her childhood are very sharp in Shirley's mind. Among these there is one in particular.  
She's more or less ten years old and the ultra-flat screen of their television is broadcasting a very old movie in black and white. The protagonist is a cute little, curly blonde girl, called Shirley Temple. Shirley Watson, lying on the carpet, turns to Mary "Mom, my name is Shirley because of that actress?" Shirley is a bit unusual name, in fact. Obsolete, her teacher told her, inviting her to look up the meaning of this word in the dictionary. There are many Patties, Judies and Stephanies in her school, but she has never known another Shirley.  
Mary smiles "Yes, when you were born we hadn't yet decided your name. Then your dad, in front of the nursery, suddenly said _'Let's call her Shirley.'_ Until that moment neither I knew that he liked the little actress."  
Her dad says nothing and shows his usual friendly smile, but his eyes are suddenly filled with a deep sadness.  
Shirley knows, she knows that his dad has told a lie, but the pain she sees is so heavy that she can't bring herself to say anything and turned back to the tv.  
  
Sherlock.  
Shirley.  
There's nothing else to say.  


*****

Almost a whole week passes before Sherlock's able to get out of bed and crawl to the cemetery. He puts down his usual bunch of roses next to the vase of cyclamen that Shirley brought and he heavily sits on the ground. He smiles as he watches John's and nods toward the black one.  
"Soon it'll not be a lie anymore."  
He feels light, because soon everything will end and he'll be able to stop lying to his love.  


*****

Almost a whole year passes before Shirley can come back to London. She's with Tom now, she wears a ring on her finger, and in four months she will give birth to her first child.  
She isn't surprised to find the tomb of his father dirty and unadorned this time: it was evident that Sherlock's days were numbered and the black gravestone is no longer empty for sure.  
She kneels down and begins to clean the tombstone of John Watson and when she moves onto the next one, Tom asks if it's the one of some relative.  
"More or less." the girl replied laconically and then, aided by her husband, she buries an old shoebox between the two tombs.  
Shirley isn't a religious person, she doesn't believe in the afterlife, nor in reincarnation, but she finds herself hoping that somewhere these two lost souls can find each other.

 _Tell me if you believe_  
_in what you don't see, yet_  
_there's that a part of the heart_  
_will always be suspended_  
_without a sound,_  
_as if he's waiting_  
_of the sunray,_  
_that we were._  


**END**


End file.
